Backing Up Analog Recordings

[eMDe]

HI Forum

at the moment i was thinking about the Hi-MD and its uploading risk of damaging the original recording while transferring it to SonicStage. ( I read about it in this Forum, but I don't own a Hi-MD device for test it by myself)

When it is possible to access All Data on a Hi-MD, that it must be possible to create an Image Backup before uploading the recordings to SonicStage.

For example with software like Drive Image/Ghost, Nero, Backitup, ........

Has anyone tried this out?

[Christopher]

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7687

[eMDe]

Thanks for your reply,

I allready read this Topic and it reassures me of using the USB for Upload.

But what's about creating an image from a Hi-MD disc? is it Possible?

In case of uploading a very important recording there could be the possibility to back up the disc to Image data before uploading.

... and if Uploads failure to rebuild it to the disc again.

[ROMBUSTERS]

no one has found a way to sucessfully ghost a HiMD disc while retaining the audio data. The theory goes that the HiMD player mounts the storage drive as a virtual folder while maintaining complete control over its contents.

However reformatting the disc through windows rid the disc of its HiMD audio abilities and thus can be ghosted like any other storage device (although this again doesnt make sense in your case with your fear being about the recordings themselves).

[dex Otaku]

You can't backup the audio data and still maintain the DRM info that is required to do anything with the disc.

Basically, no, you can't backup images of the discs.

[eMDe]

year that's a pity

So if I understood it right, the Audio and DRM Section onto the disc is absolutly invisible for Win-Systems.

-

may the Sound be with you !

[dex Otaku]

Not exactly, no. The audio and DRM data are contained in files that work something like virtual partitions - like how compressed or encrypted partitions used to work under DOS.

To Windows [or whatever other USB storage compatible OS] these just show up as files.

To SonicStage and Simple Burner, those files show up as the audio portion of the disc while the rest is basically ignored completely. The HiMD drivers allow these programs to communicate with the hardware and thereby the audio portion/files; anything else trying to access them can't really do much of use, without that added driver layer to support the DRM, encryption, &c.

The backup technique likely doesn't work because of a keying system that uniquely matches a specific physical format of a HiMD disc with the audio files on the disc. Again, this would be something the actual hardware does; when you go to restore a disc image, it basically formats the disc again, changing that key, and making the audio unusable even though the entire disc structure that we see is identical.

Or at least, that's my 4am theory on it. It could be completely wrong, but hey - that's one way they could do it.